Author Archives
John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War" and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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New Take on the Wild West in Frontier
Frontier, the new comic strip by Jason Cobley and Andrew Wildman is now up and running in weekly subscription-only comic The DFC. The second instalment sees heroes Mitch and Daisy dealing with the Weird and Wonderful… well, check out the… Read More ›
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"Sober Dog" Comes To An End
Top comics creator Nick Abadzis‘ strip The Trial of the Sober Dog, which started its run back in June last year (see news story), finished its run in the British daily newspaper The Times yesterday. If you missed it, the… Read More ›
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John Barrowman collaborates on new Torchwood strip
Titan Magazines has confirmed that Doctor Who and Torchwood actor John “Captain Jack” Barrowman will be co-writing an episode of an upcoming Torchwood Magazine comic strip. Issue 14 of the Magazine, on sale 19 February in the UK, will feature… Read More ›
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Ex Astris Continues in Spaceship Away
Bill Storie (aka Mike Nicoll) and I have just completed work on the second episode of “Secrets of Ceres”, the Ex Astris prequel strip running in science fiction comic magazine Spaceship Away, which goes to the printers soon. There were… Read More ›
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Ask Alan!
Joe Gordon from Forbidden Planet International has been in touch to let us know that as a follow up to their cracking big interview with Alan Moore, conducted by Pádraig Ó Méalóid (Part One here, Part Two here), the pair… Read More ›
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What’s Chores? No Heroics on ITV1 tonight…
The second episode of the ITV2 superhero comedy No Heroics, produced by Tiger Aspect, will be getting its first airing on ITV 1 at 11.35pm. The six-part series features a group of British off-duty superheroes living their day to day… Read More ›
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New Garth on MyEBook
The first new adventure of longtime Daily Mirror hero Garth, which has already been published on the British newspaper’s web site, have now been collected and are available in an online format from British e-publisher myebook.com. As noted in an… Read More ›
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Planetary Stories with a British flavour…
(via writer Erwin K. Roberts): The coming of the new year also brings new issues of the quarterly sister web magazines Planetary Stories and Pulp Spirit, described by their editor as an online homage to the S-F pulp magazines of… Read More ›
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Weetabix to launch new Shaun the Sheep Promo
Shaun the Sheep creators Aardman have teamed up with Weetabix to launch a special promotion on over 20 million packs of Weetabix, Minis, Bitesize and Ready Brek in the UK. Yes – that’s right. 20 million boxes of Shaun covered… Read More ›
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Commando Webbing: 12 January 2009
Over Christmas the boffins on the Commando Mag site launched a sneek attack under the radar and added a fourth complete on-line Commando story before they had even finished the third. Last Laugh is a World War II story of… Read More ›
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Paul Cornell Signing in London
Captain Britain and Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell will be signing copies of the Captain Britain and MI13 – Secret Invasion graphic novel, the first collection of the Marvel Comics series, at Forbidden Planet later this week (Thursday 15th January)…. Read More ›
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New Judge Dredd Movie: First Look
(via Rufus Dayglo and I09): 2000AD artist Jock has posted some designs for the new Judge Dredd film online, prompting excitement from fans hoping this time round the movie won’t turn into the disappointment for many of the Sylvester Stallone… Read More ›
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Tintin is 80!
Happy birthday Tintin! 80 years ago this weekend (on 10 January 1929), Hergé’s Tintin made his first appearance in Le Petit Vingtième, the weekly children’s supplement of Le XXe Siècle. With Steven Spielberg working on a Hollywood film of the… Read More ›
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Woolworths RIP
What is the least popular of the current batch of Doctor Who action figures? If the closing down sales in Woolworths were anything to go by it was the Destroyed Cassandra, a toy which rather looks like the sprue left… Read More ›
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Panel Borders Podcast News
Alex Fitch of ResonanceFM and Panel Borders has been in touch with information on his new broadcasts / podcasts: On Air Now: Strip – The work of Raymond Briggs The UK’s only weekly radio show about comic books returns after… Read More ›
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Fox Challenged on Watchmen
Above: the latest promotional video for Watchmen featuring more on the Minute Men’s role in the movies story and includes brief interviews with Zack Snyder and Dave Gibbons who worked on the graphic novel with comic’s writer Alan Moore. By… Read More ›
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Ex Astris on Clickwheel
The Ex Astris strips first featured on ROK Comics are now appearing on Rebellion’s iPod and iPhone service Clickwheel. Ex Astris is a multi-strand CGI-created strip written by John Freeman and drawn by Bill Storie (aka Mike Nicoll). The strip… Read More ›
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Tube Surfing: 8 January 2009
• Things to buy this month – Marvel Heroes #3 from Panini UK, which allegedly features an Iron Man story by Al Ewing and Kev Walker, and Judge Dredd Megazine #280, on sale now in UK newsagents, which has the… Read More ›
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Frost, Pegg for TinTin?
After what seems like months of no news on the project since it was first announced back in May last year, reports are appearing online suggesting Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have reportedly signed up to play the Thompson Twins… Read More ›
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In Review: Aya of Yop City
• Written by Marguerite Abouet • Art by Clement Oubrerie • UK Publisher: Jonathan Cape • Released: 15 January 2009 For the residents of Yopougon, everyday life is good. It is the early 1970s, a golden time – work is… Read More ›